


we a are a parable of parallels

by Ship_theboybands



Series: names of fire and flight and snow [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, M/M, Poetry, idk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6987118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ship_theboybands/pseuds/Ship_theboybands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>contradiction and coincidence</p>
            </blockquote>





	we a are a parable of parallels

Will sweating in his overalls  
The sea boxing him up like a red hot package  
In the red hot boat pulling red ribbed lobsters out of the sea  
A bead of sweat rolling hot down his neck  
His hands becoming tools in his gloves  
Pruning and shrivelling until they rash red

Derek’s Mom making lobster salad  
In the ice cold kitchen  
Slicing ice berg lettuce  
Pulling things out of the freezer and leaving the door open  
Derek choking on the lobster salad  
Derek’s Dad asking if he’s alright  
A stare in some language he can’t decipher  
Something about Mom’s cooking, or something about making a scene  
He’s seen it before, heard it before, lilt to the voice, lull to the conversation-ice cold silence  
“Huh? Yeah, it’s chill.” Red faced  
A summer where Derek walked past the bridge and thought  
Maybe-

There is no room for poetry in lower class Maine  
Every red door a hard worker without space in his head for much but  
The pay check he’s going to use to feed his kids  
Poetry is inevitable in upper middle class New York  
Every street corner a depressed artist smoking a joint

Will’s Mom using what they couldn’t sell to make lobster soup  
The evening there wasn’t quite enough to go around  
And Will pretended to fill his bowl  
And sucked on an empty spoon  
The coppery taste of iron, like blood

Derek setting out the nice china on his fifteenth birthday  
Butter icing, that silver knife in his Mom’s hand  
A silence that slices at his skin

It is expected that Will’s Mom will cook  
And that his sister will waitress down at the local diner  
And that he and his Dad and his brothers will fish on the lobster boat  
Is expected that Derek’s Mom will leave his Dad and take half the company when she finds him in bed with his assistant  
What a cliché you didn’t know actually existed outside of TV

The time Derek accidentally tells his therapist about the bridge where he-  
The time Will goes without one too many times and passes out in Gym class and the nurse says-  
Two hospital tags being ripped off

Two beautiful apartments for Derek to wander around  
And stare at the walls until his eyes roll into the back of his head  
Three red headed brothers in one bedroom with matching red rashes  
And stomachs rumbling

A mathematical brain that dreams of an idealistic future  
Silently catching up lobsters like one of these days a red shell’s going to be gold plated  
An artistic mind that can’t look much further than the next few weeks before it shuts down  
Panic mode, code red, two palms pressing into eye sockets and a sharp intake of breath  
Cold New York air, a drop of New York snow dripping cold down his neck as he crouches on somebody’s front step trying to remember how to move forwards

Will in his Dad’s old red flannel  
Lined with warm fur and the smell of the boat  
Derek shivering in his tank top  
Threadbare from Urban Outfitters

One hand recovered from that red rash  
One hand determinedly not shaking  
A firm grip, tight grimace  
Limp fingers, loose smile  
Collision

In understanding you I have come to understand us  
Between every reason we work and every reason we don’t  
I understand something more about myself  
We a are a parable of parallels  
Contradiction and coincidence  
A cold dark hand in a clammy pink-and-red one  
So long as one of us is breathing steady, man  
the other one can match it


End file.
